Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

Dinner at Bight with Charles Murto, Finland’s Ambassador to Canada.

You’ll need to enlarge the photo above to see everyone clearly. The picture was taken on Anni Stahle’s phone. Anni is the Head of Public Diplomacy for the Finnish Embassy to Canada. She’s the lovely lady in white. Across from Anni, in the vibrant red hair, is Sari Lietsala, Counsul, 2nd Secretary in the embassy. Next to Sari is my host and tour guide, Dr. Ron Harpelle, Chair of the History Department at Lakehead University. His wife Kelly Saxberg, a documentary filmmaker and Finnish Canadian (who invited me to speak at Finn Fest) is across the table from Ron. Next to her, and directly across from me (I’m wearing the green hula shirt) is Ritva Murto, the ambassador’s wife. Seated next to Ritva is Ambassador Charles Murto and to his right is Laura McSwiggan, Honorary Vice Consul in Ottawa. The last member of the group, seated to my right, is Margaret Wanlin-Hyer, Thunder Bay business consultant and wife of former MP (member of parliament), Bruce Hyer. There. Now you who I had dinner with at Thunder Bay’s trendiest restaurant on June 24th. Just how did I end up in such esteemed company you ask? Hold on a second and I’ll tell you.

It’s no secret that, as my second son Dylan once remarked, I’m (paraphrasing) “semi-famous in Canada.” Back in 2000, after my first novel, The Legacy was published, I took a chance. I was looking for places to promote my book: bookstores, civic groups, arts and crafts shows, and libraries were all targets of my less-than-sophisticated marketing strategy. Many times, emails and letters and promotional packets I sent out were ignored, discarded, or relegated to the slush pile. But when Barb Philp, head of Adult Services of the Thunder Bay Public Library system replied to my email and invited me to come up to Thunder Bay to read from The Legacy, I made the trip north on Highway 61 to Thunder Bay. Reading for the first time in front of a room full of strangers, I was mortified. Oh sure, I’d done a reading at my book launch at the Amazing Grace Bakery and another at the local Barnes and Noble store. But those events were held in my own backyard, attended by friends and family. I had no idea what awaited me in old Fort William that wintery night in 2000. Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

In fact the experience at the Brodie Library compelled me to so something out of my comfort zone: I joined a writing group, the Northwestern Ontario Writers Workshop (NOWW). Through NOWW I participated in the annual book sale at the Waverly library, Finn Fling at Lakehead University, book signings at the local Chapters Bookstore, a conference at the Prince Arthur Hotel regarding Karelian Fever (the reverse migration of Finns from the US and Canada back to Soviet Karelia), the Sleeping Giant Writers Conference, readings at other branches of the Thunder Bay library, and a workshop discussing the perils and rewards of self-publishing. All this because one nice lady, Ms. Phelp, took the time to invite me up.

The tori (market) at Finn Fest 2016.

So here I am. It’s early Saturday morning. I’m at the Finnish Labour Temple on Bay Street. I’m crammed into a room with ten or so other vendors on the third floor of the building, selling my books to Finns attending Finn Fest. When I saw that the festival was scheduled for late June, I emailed Kelly Saxberg, who I’d met at a brunch following the debut of her film, Under the Red Star. That chance meeting, brought about because my novel, Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh, portrays the lives of Finns who settled around Lake Superior, propelled my work-in-progress, Sukulaiset: The Kindred (a story of Karelian fever) forward. 16 years after I first made my way north to Thunder Bay as an author, I find myself back in this lovely harbor city shadowed by mountains, talking to Canadians about Finns and hawking books to strangers.

Hall, Finnish Labour Temple, Thunder Bay.

My time here is limited. I have to leave the festival early to be in Two Harbors where I am slatted to deliver a eulogy at the funeral of my Uncle Wayne.

I arrived in Thunder Bay on Thursday evening. After settling into my room at the Prince Arthur Hotel, I strolled the town’s resurgent waterfront. I stopped to admire kids playing in a fountain, skaters doing tricks on concrete ramps, billowing sails of boats plying the bay inside the breakwater, and locals and tourists walking through the park on a beautiful summer evening. I found a pub, had a local brew, and set off to find something to eat. My favorite restaurant in town, Armando’s, closed. I wandered Port Arthur’s downtown until I found a pub serving food but I was disappointed to learn that the kitchen was closed, leaving a meat and cheese appetizer tray as my supper. I drank a Sleeping Giant lager, listened to two local boys emulating Neil Young, watched the crowd, and marveled at the lengthy journey I’d made in pursuit of fame.

On Friday, Ron Harpelle (Kelly’s husband) met me in the hotel lobby. We found a local haunt and over steaming cups of java, we talked politics, family, projects, films, and books for the better part of an hour. Ron was charged with meeting Ambassador Charles Murto and his wife Ritva at the airport. With time to kill, we piled into Ron’s van for an impromptu tour of the city. We visited Lakehead’s new law school and met the dean before heading to Chapters. I was bound and determined to buy a copy of Charlie Wilkins’s memoir, Circus at the Edge of the Earth. I’ve met Charlie, who came to Thunder Bay decades ago as the library’s writer in residence, a number of times, including at my first reading at the Brodie Library all those many years ago. He’s a well known essayist and writer with a national audience and a pretty neat guy. I own several of his books. I’ve always wanted to read Circus. Chapters is Canada’s equivalent to Barnes and Noble: a chain bookstore that believes bigger is better. Unfortunately, when I checked Chapters’ computer and the shelves, no Circus. In fact, no Charlie Wilkins whatsoever.

“We can order you a copy,” a helpful young female clerk suggested.

“I’m American,” I replied. “I don’t think that’ll work.”

I was buying a copy of Such a Long Journey by Canadian author, Rohinton Mistry just as Ron sauntered up.

“No Circus?” Ron asked.

“No Wilkins. Period.”

I paid for the book. We walked to the car.

“I really wanted that book,” I lamented.

My talk at the library went well. The audience listened intently as I explained researching and writing my two Finnish flavored books. Folks asked questions. I sold and signed books before making my way to the Labour Temple for the festival’s opening ceremony. I took a seat and watched an itinerary splash across the big screen in the crowded hall. Covers of my Finn books appeared. I smiled. Member of Parliament, Patty Hajdu, the Ambassador, and other dignitaries were introduced in English and Finnish. Several Finnish groups and musicians performed between brief speeches. And then, the festival was officially “open for business.”

Our dinner Friday night at Bight Restaurant was filled with political discussion, talk of the cultural differences between our nations, and consideration of just how The Donald was going to build a wall along the American/Canadian border.

“Is he going to float the thing in the middle of the Great Lakes?” I asked aloud. Given that Ambassador Murto, his wife, and staff were in attendance for casual dining, I’ll not repeat their responses here. Lets just say that the world is wondering just what the United States is thinking. Our meals were great. The wine was tasty. I avoided desert.

Saturday morning. I rose, packed, checked out, and drove the short distance to the Labour Temple for breakfast at Hoito (another of Charlie’s books, Breakfast at Hoito is one I have read and cherish). The restaurant in the basement of the old union hall wasn’t open. I walked across the street to Scandia and found the same Finnish pancakes I was craving. After eating and reading the Chronicle Journal, I set up my table in the tori (market) and waited for customers. Outside, the sky was darkening. Before long the clouds let loose, drenching vendors set up in the parking lot.

Storm brewing over the hall.

As I sit in my chair and watch Finns wander about, I consider the fact that I’ll likely outsell Thunder Bay’s most famous author because, inexplicably, the largest bookstore in town doesn’t carry his titles. Kelly arrives to say goodbye. She hands me a copy of The Big Blue, a documentary she directed about Wilkins and 15 other folks, mostly Canadians, who rowed from Africa to America. No sails. No motors. Just the power of their arms and legs propelling a catamaran across the Atlantic. I thank Kelly for her and Ron’s hospitality. Shortly after she leaves, I pack up and make my way back to the States.

I jet down Highway 61, and make my uncle’s funeral just in the nick of time. Later, after unpacking at home, I pop the DVD into the player. I watch and listen as my Canadian friend contemplates a journey that he, at 63 years old, seems ill equipped to make. And yet, despite the odds, he does what he sets out to do and then writes a book about the experience.

They aren’t even stocking his books in his adopted hometown’s biggest bookstore and yet, he soldiers on.

There’s a lesson in this tale for those of us who aspire to write something folks want to read.

Peace.

Mark

PS You can find copies of Charlie’s books (including his account of his Atlantic crossing, Little Ship of Fools) online if not on the shelves of your local bookstore!

Mondale. Meyer, Millard, and Munger @ Elsie Lake.

They are old men now. Actually, they are very old men now. But in their day, they were (collectively) a Vice President (and Senator, Ambassador to Japan, and Minnesota Attorney General); a criminal defense lawyer, fur trapper, and gemologist; a Peace Corps diplomat, economist, and outdoors enthusiast; and a plaintiff’s lawyer, Democratic delegate to the 1968 National Convention, and avid hunter/fisherman. They range in age; from Harry Munger, the eldest, to Bruce Meyer, the youngest; 89 to 83. Mondale is 87 and Millard, a mere 85. They have battled cancer, heart attacks, stomach ailments, bowl disease, loss of spouses and children, and a host of other conditions through their “golden years”. Their vision has dimmed and their hearing is sometimes non-existent. Two of the four use C-Pap machines to sleep at night. Their gaits are unsteady: quiet, slow steps to avoid catastrophic falls. And yet, there they are standing on the wooden dock outside Ignace Airways, waiting to board a DeHavilland Otter for a short flight, a flight all of them relish and remember from years of fishing together. They are headed to Elsie Lake in the backwoods of Ontario. The “younger” guys, two men in their late fifties and early sixties (myself and Sammy Perrella), help the fertile octogenarians into the Otter and claim seats. The Otter slips away from the pier. Randy, the bush pilot, fires up the powerful single engine that will lift tons of humanity, gear, and food into the still Ontarian air. And then, they are airborne, returning to the Litman Camp for another week of walleye fishing.

Flying into Elsie Lake.

Ross and Jay Litman, two of the four children of Judge Jack and Helen Litman, the camp having been left in the confident hands of the Litman children upon the deaths of the patriarch and matriarch of the family, greet the Otter as it lands. The plane is quickly unloaded. Mike, who is married to Mara-the only Litman daughter, stands on shore, waiting to leave. We pack his gear, some bags of trash and recyclables onto the plane, and Randy shuts the door, ready to depart. The Otter’s piston-driven engine revs. The old sheet metal of the cowling rattles. The newly arrived pick up our bags and begin the process of settling in.

My wife and I spent our honeymoon here back in August of 1978. Oh, we weren’t alone in the Canadian bush. The entire Litman, Munger, and Mondale families, along with the Secret Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and an Ontario Provincial Police officer or two camped with us to provide security for the then-Vice President. My wife hasn’t been back to visit but I’ve been privileged over the past decade to join the four fertile octogenarians, sometimes accompanied by neurosurgeon Dr. Bob (Robert Donley, M.D.), Sam Litman (Jay’s son), and Tony (Sammy Perrella’s son) for five or six days in paradise.

In the bunkhouse, I claim a top bunk and roll out my sleeping bag. The old men do the same. Despite the ages of my bunkmates, the banter is lively and nearly constant. That evening, Ross, Jay, and Sammy man boats to transport us to the walleye “hotspots” for the evening bite. Elsie does not disappoint yielding fish after fish after fish to jigs and spinners tipped with minnows and worms. After a long drive, a short flight, and a few hours of excitement, we eat a hearty dinner and tumble into bed.

The menu and the cooking (handled by Jay and Sammy and Ross) is always exemplary. We eat big, hot breakfasts including eggs, bacon, French toast, blueberry pancakes, egg McMuffins, and sausage. Lunch is a rarity. Dinners this trip include hamburgers and brats, filet of beef, Sammy’s pasta, Sammy’s pizza, fresh fish, barbecue ribs, brisket, and assorted side dishes. There’s not a restaurant in the U.S. or Canada that can top the fare at the Litman Camp. George and I are the designated dishwashers. Everyone, regardless of age or infirmity, pitches in to clean and organize before we leave. Ross, as always, is a whirling dervish of energy, constantly on the move. Jay, to his credit, tinkers, using a methodical approach to repairing the things that need repair.

The political discussions around the dinner table? With an “interesting” election brewing and a former candidate for President in attendance, well, let’s just say that the dialogue becomes spirited; the observations, crystalline.

Mondale holding court at the dinner table.

Despite rainy, cold weather, everyone catches fish.

George and Ross head out to fish.

One afternoon, Ross and I take a detour and end up talking to the only neighbor on Elsie Lake. Imagine, if you can, a lake the size of Fish Lake (near where I live) with only two fishing camps on its beautiful shores. Then take away road access, requiring everyone and everything that comes onto the lake to be either flown in or, during the depths of the Canadian winter, hauled in over the ice via snowmobile. That’s Elsie. Anyway, back to the narrative. Ross and I pull up to the only other dock on the lake to say hello to Ava, the owner. It’s supposed to be a short, “how-do-you-do” session. Instead, the very slight septuagenarian asks us to join her on the deck. I ask the old woman about her personal history and she launches into a story of escape from East Germany, the foreign accent beneath her well-formed English buttressing her words. It’s a harrowing ordeal that ends with Ava escaping to Canada and her mother being shot by a neighbor working as a border guard. Motherless, and having left her father behind, Ava relates a tale of heroism, kindness, pluck, and fortitude that someday might find it’s way into a Munger short story or novel. We thank the old woman for her hospitality and leave, the two of us happy to have learned something of her mettle.

Coneys in the boat. Munger and Mondale.

On the only day the sun comes out (except, of course, for the day we leave!) Jay and I motor the pontoon boat across the lake to fish for smallmouth bass. My gold spinner tipped with a nightcrawler or a minnow is an instant hit. I pull in big smallies every fourth or fifth cast. Jay catches a few on flies. The bass are on their nests, depressions created by the fish to lay eggs in Elsie’s cold water. The fish are readily visible, hovering above their nests, aggressively protecting their defined territory. The fish aren’t hungry: just pissed off at our intrusion. It’s an afternoon spent hauling in one and two pound smallies, the fish snapping viciously at our offerings, diving deep and leaping high into the still Ontario air when hooked.

Typical Elsie smallie caught by Jay on a fly.

Over the week, we catch a few lake trout, some whitefish (pound for pound the hardest fighting fish I’ve ever tied into), oodles of walleye, tons of bass, and the occasional lunker northern pike (Bruce landing one over twelve pounds). Nearly all the fish go back into the lake with the exception of a few walleye used for the evening fish fry the night before we leave and a few fillets for the fertile octogenarians to take home.

Ever constant and nearby are the dogs: Devin, Jada, and Lilly. The two Labs, Jada and Lilly, can be found under the table at every meal, waiting for Harry to drop them a treat or two. During fishing hours, the dogs are out on the water, keeping their human companions company.

Jada napping on the long ride to the river.

One night, after sufficient reflection and libations, we come up with a plan. Ava, it seems, is in need of a husband. Our collective genius devises a scenario where George, a widower, might be willing to “take one for the team” by proposing marriage to the elderly refugee if, and this of course, is the key, her fish camp is part of her dowry. The plan is never implemented though George seems willing to give it a go. And that’s where the term “fertile octogenarian” manifests: in our rousing discussions of how and when the marriage might, if ever, be consummated.

In our travels, we see an otter scoping us out and bald eagles and countless ducks and geese in flight. Resident loons locate a school of bait fish just off the Litman dock and feed and call for hours. Ross points out native orchids, Minnesota’s state flower, the showy lady slipper, as we walk a wooded trail. A tree frog makes itself known. On the ride from Thunder Bay to Ignace, we see a cow moose grazing in a roadside swamp. There is no question we are in wilderness despite all the fine food, noisy chatter, and relative comforts the camp offers.

Tree frog.

“I hate having to do this,” Ross says as he dismantles his rods and reels. We are packing for departure when the Sheriff of St. Louis County utters his lament. Indeed. The next morning at 11:00am sharp the Otter and a Beaver will be idling on the now calm water, waiting to fly us back to Ignace. Five days spent with wisdom, age, and good people will have come and gone. But the memories? Ah, they will be with us forever.

Peace.

Mark

Lady slipper on the trail.

Sammy delivering conies to the old guys.

Both sides of my family once worked the land. On my paternal side, my grandfather, Harry Munger, Sr. came from a farming family. His father, Lyman Munger was one of the earliest homesteaders in Otter Tail County. But despite Lyman’s attempts at being a philosopher/farmer, his legacy, at least the one that survives, is that of being more philosopher than farmer. His son, Grandpa Harry, spent most of his life working jobs that didn’t involve tilling the earth, planting seeds, and harvesting. However, Grandpa could not entirely escape the enticement of dirt. As a small child, I spent many an afternoon walking with Grandpa Harry through the narrow rows of his unkempt vegetable plot behind an equally unkempt two-story house in Duluth’s Riverside neighborhood. I remember weeds. I remember tangle. I remember raspberries and little else actually being harvested from that garden. My own father, Harry, Jr., has expressed agricultural aspirations but that’s where his involvement with the soil ends. But on the Zuehlsdorf side of my father’s heritage, the maternal side, there’s a history of industrious husbandry and cultivation. My grandmother’s father was a master farmer who owned four working farms outside Fergus Falls, Minnesota. And then there is my mother’s side of things. Her father, a Slovenian immigrant, wasn’t interested in the soil. Grandpa Jack was many things: outdoorsman; resort builder; miner; salesman; and Mason. But he wasn’t, so far as I can recall, a gardener. His youngest sibling, Steve “Stutz” Kobe, on the other hand, loved to work dirt.

Great Uncle Stutz lived his whole life in Aurora, Minnesota. A quiet, single man who, according to family lore, lost his one and only true love to parental objection, Stutz worked not in the iron mines of the Mesabi Range but as a trackman for the DM&IR, the short haul line that served the mines of NE Minnesota. Stutz lived the majority of his adult life with Great Aunt Ann, my grandpa’s younger sister, a woman of kind heart, small stature, and big emotions. She was widowed early in her marriage and, with Stutz’s help raised two dark eyed, dark haired sons in a little white frame house a few feet away from the DM&IR tracks that Stutz repaired.

Last Saturday, as I planned my vegetable garden, first tilling the sandy soil, and then, slowly, methodically placing stakes in the ground to prescribe each row, I thought of Uncle Stutz and how, more than anyone in my family, his love of gardening compels me to fight off age and competing interests to work the soil. He’s been gone at least fifteen years but as I crawled through the dirt, poking holes in the loam with my index finger, laying in seeds, and tapping loose earth to cover my plantings I smiled at the thought that somewhere, in some other realm, Stutz was watching with approval.

Stutz Kobe wasn’t especially intelligent or ambitious or worldly. He was just one of those older relatives who expressed his love of family in very simple and straightforward ways. When I was working on a log cabin that my buddies and me were building in the wood lot of the old Tynjala farm in nearby Makinen, I’d drive over to Aurora, stop in, and see Ann and Stutz. I’d saunter up to the front door, knock, and invariably, Stutz, who was retired, would answer. His greeting was always the same:

“Markie, Markie! Come on in and have a beer.” Then he’d turn and holler: “Ann, Markie’s here. Fix him a sandwich, will you?”

We’d sit in the enclosed front porch, the windows open to summer heat, the screens keeping the flies and mosquitoes at bay, talk baseball and politics, eat our sandwiches, and sip Grain Belt. One time, when I was single-handily adding a loft to the cabin, I showed up at Ann’s for supper, a hot bath, the obligatory cold beer, and a good night’s sleep in Ann’s extra bedroom.

When I’d visit during the summer, Stutz would pridefully show me his carefully plotted, diligently weeded vegetable garden. Over the noise of passing ore trains rumbling behind the house, I’d study the man’s handiwork and admire his fortitude. I can’t say I consciously knew during those brief moments that I’d someday try to emulate Stutz’s green thumb. But later on, after Rene’ and I married and we moved to the country and inherited an already existing vegetable plot, when I came in contact with Stutz at funerals, weddings, visits, or Kobe family reunions, my great uncle always asked: “How’s your garden?” In truth, while I’ve tried hard to replicate the diligence that Stutz injected into his cucumbers and potatoes and tomatoes and sweet peas and pumpkins and assorted other crops, I’m more Munger than Zuelsdorf when it comes to working the land. Still, Stutz’s quiet, steadfast example manifests every summer as I weed raspberries, hill squash, or pick ears of sweet corn under August’s swelter.

I’ve been blessed with many mentors in my life. Some of those folks were college educated. Others, like Stutz, were quiet, hardworking people whose advice was based, not upon great intellect or learning, but upon finding and accepting life’s simple pleasures. I thought about the lessons Great Uncle Stutz gifted to me last Saturday afternoon as I put away the tiller, dusted off my jeans and scrutinized my newly planted garden.

Peace.

Mark

Poncho readies the boat.

Minnesota’s Fishing Opener. The Mungers and the Scotts. Used to be the Mungers, the Scotts, the Tessiers, the Nelsons, the Lundeens, and the Listons. It’s a tradition at the Scott place that began 49 years ago by the six fathers. Now there’s only one of the original dads left: Harry Munger, who’s in Florida and won’t be making his way north until the end of May. Used to be, in addition to the six dads, later five (tabbed “The Iron Five” when Jim Liston, Sr. dropped out) we had upwards of twenty boys and men crowding the Scott cabin on Whiteface Lake north of Duluth. This year, there’s an even dozen, including Patrick “Poncho” Scott, Tim “Scurvy” Scott, myself, my brother Dave, and assorted other Scotts and Mungers. Three of my four sons made the trip even though the weather forecast for NE Minnesota calls for it to be cold, windy, and snowy. This is one year the weather prognosticators are spot on.

Thing is, no matter the fishing, no matter the weather, so long as the Scotts invite us, the Mungers show up. Sometimes it feels like we’re intruding on a family outing. That feeling lasts for about a beer or so. Then, as we start catching up on family news and as the old stories start being retold, the warm glow of a half-century of friendship exudes itself and any angst or trepidation about being at Pat Scott’s lovely home, tromping through her kitchen and taking over her place, dissipates.

The Mungers arrive with two boats in tow; Matt’s new pickup towing my Crestliner; and my tired Pacifica pulling my dad’s old Cadillac open fishing boat. Matt and Chris launch the Crestliner at the public landing. I clamber aboard, turn the key, and the 4 stroke Mercury 60 horse purrs like a kitten. In minutes, I’m down the lake, beaching the boat at the Scotts. Chris and Matt and Jack launch the Cadillac and Chris pilots the old aluminum boat across open water, the cranky two stroke Evinrude unwilling to draw gas from the tank, requiring my third son to resort to putt-putting into shore with the four stroke Honda trolling motor. Later, I’ll take the Cadillac out and get the Evinrude roaring, discovering that the line from the gas tank to the motor wasn’t quite snug. Once on shore, I trundle over to the Nickila place, John Nickila being related by marriage to the Scotts, and ask permission to tie up at the his dock. After a brief chat, I move my boat and secure it for the night. Or so I think.

Food is never an issue at Opener. In year’s past, the eldest Scott, John, and his younger brother Tim, had coordinated the menu. My job? Bring the minnows, which I order in bulk from the Fredenberg Minno-ette. Last year, fishing was so good at the Opener, we nearly ran out of minnows but that’s a rarity. Usually, we dump dozens of extra chubs and shiners behind the Scott garage, fertilizing Cabin Circle’s majestic white and red pines. After a hearty meal of barbecue chicken and Pat Scott’s secret recipe hotdish, it’s more conversation, more beer, and a few games of smear. I get Jack to sit in and learn the game. Or at least, he begins to understand the nuances of trump, tricks, and the like.

Saturday morning. I awake to find that the stern line on the Crestliner came loose and that the boat has turned in the wind. My Boy Scout knot tying obviously failed. Chris turns the boat around and re-secures it to the Nickila dock. No damage is done.

The photo above says it all. There’s a couple inches of new snow blanketing the landscape and our boats. Tim and John’s eldest, Joe, take the grandkids up-river in hopes of surprising walleye. The Mungers are content to sleep in. The past two years, we’ve done well on Whiteface, better than any other two-year stretch since the Scott’s began inviting folks up in 1967. This year? Not so much. The Scotts roar back to the dock after an hour and a half of fruitless fishing. Breakfast is gobbled. Dishes are done. And then Matt and Jack and I gather up winter clothes, minnows, fishing gear, and head out in the Crestliner. Chris mans the Cadillac and guides for his cousin Jon and Poncho’s son Christopher. The other boats go back out as well.

Matt trying to stay warm.

It’s cold and windy but, praise the Lord, at least it’s not snowing or raining. Fishing is slow. Matt catches two keeper walleye. I pull in a perch and a pike. Jack remains a Whiteface virgin. The other boats don’t do much better.

Jack seems to lack intensity.

Steaks on the grill, coleslaw, bread, and hash browns precede another furious round of smear, political discourse, and lamenting the Twins. Tim, the former AD and baseball coach at Hibbing High School, uses some colorful language to describe our beloved major league baseball team, all of us offering helpful suggestions as to how the Twinks can turn things around. Outside, the little kids poke sticks in a roaring fire. The snow is gone but not the cold. All told, our dozen fishermen hauled in a dozen fish, few of which are keepers. But catching fish, the few years we’ve managed to do so at Whiteface, is ancillary to the Opener. Disappointment regarding our collective catch isn’t an issue. After a sauna with my brother Dave and a few cold adult beverages, Jack and I take on Dave and Poncho in a round of smear. Jack makes some rookie mistakes and given that this is Whiteface, no quarter is given. We get trounced.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever beaten you at smear,” Poncho announces, placing the cards in the center of the table as he smiles. “It feels pretty damn good.”

Sunday morning. In the old days, Bob Scott would drive to a nearby Catholic church for Saturday or Sunday Mass with his three sons. Tim and I talk about that tradition, trying to determine when it ended, but the conversation morphs into a discussion about deer camp, another shared experience from our youth. Ken Hubert, a friend of the Scotts and mine (we were in each others’ weddings) wanders over to check on how we’re doing. Ken is newly retired, the former AD and girls’ swim coach at Faribault High School. His mom and stepdad have a cabin a few doors’ down. I envy Tim and Ken and the missing John Scott. They’re all retired and free, so long as the money holds out, to pursue their dreams. I try to keep my envy in check but it’s a tall order. As always, after a hearty breakfast of Bob Scott recipe pancakes, the boats are back on the water. The snow is gone. Sunshine toys with us into early afternoon. Jack catches a snaky pike, breaking his fishless weekend. But the walleye don’t cooperate.

The boats are trailered. Joe Scott cooks hamburgers and hotdogs on the gas grill. Everyone stuffs themselves. Tim tallies the ledger and we all chip in our share. As the Scotts and the Mungers pack up their gear, Tim is already working on next year, creating a menu for the 50th Anniversary of the Scott Fishing Opener. Hopefully, John Scott, the patriarch of the family, can break away from his retirement travels and show up. But even if John is off gallivanting the globe, if the Mungers are invited, we’ll be at the Opener at Pat Scott’s place, fish or no fish.

Peace.

Mark

The vegetable garden.

Saturday. I’m up at the crack of dawn. There’s a big pile of cow and pig poop waiting for me to move, shovel by bitter shovel, from ground to wheelbarrow and then back to the earth. The Larsons, the folks who mow and bale hay from the field surrounding our home on the Cloquet River, dropped off a mountain of aged shit for me to consider. Free of charge. Sustenance for the soil as payment for feed for their cattle. I stand in the cool early morning air sipping coffee, thinking of how many wheelbarrows of decaying dung it will take to cover my modest vegetable plot. Steam rises from the cup. I spray myself with DEET and fill up the Troy Bilt’s tiny tank with gasoline. I shove the throttle to “fast”, push the choke to “full”, and yank the starter rope. The old tiller coughs, then dies. Another pull and the eight horse idles like brand new.

I till the sandy, largely inert topsoil of the land that I call home, working furrows into the hard, sandy loam. A flock of twenty mergansers, the males green headed, the females-dusky red, scuttles along the black surface of the river, heading downstream. The cause of the ducks’ retreat? Our nearly three-year-old black Labrador, Kena (pronounced “Keena”; Celtic for “the greatest champion”), is prancing along the top of the riverbank, searching for a tennis ball. She finds a dirty, torn up old specimen and, when I take a break from tilling, the sweat already streaking my face, she follows me, ball in mouth, insistent that I throw the disgusting sphere. I do, and, instantly realize my mistake. Labradors are notoriously persistent. I have started a game that will endure longer than my patience.

I approach my blue Pacifica, intent on unloading dog food, bird food, and assorted sundries from the van. But I’d left the ignition key in the “on” position overnight and the battery is deader than a fence post. I wander into the garage, find the battery charger and attempt to charge the Pacifica. There’s so much oxidation built up on the terminals, the battery won’t accept a charge. I unhook the battery, removed the bolts and nuts that retain the cables and bring them into the house for cleaning. There’s no baking soda to be found, the cure for oxidation, one of the few mechanical tips passed down to me by my very non-mechanical father. Rene’ will pick up soda at Super One and later in the afternoon, I’ll clean the parts, clean the terminals, and successfully start the Pacifica. But now, as cool morning air gives way to swelter, I’m content to hook up the charger. I unload the van through the passenger doors, which, thankfully given the locks are electric, were unlocked. Kena nudges my thigh, ball clenched in mouth, as I climb a ladder and fill a bird feeder with seed. I toss the ball and try to finish my chore before the Lab returns. The feeders have already attracted a purple finch, a pair of goldfinches, assorted wrens, sparrows, blue jays, bluebirds and other birds. I’m hoping for more; perhaps the return of that solitary indigo bunting we saw a few years’ back, the most beautiful bird I’ve ever seen in real life. He was here just the one time and hasn’t returned. But one can always hope.

The plot completely tilled, I begin moving the poop. It’s then I realize that I’ve made my job incrementally harder. Damn, I think, struggling to push a loaded wheelbarrow through loose soil, I should have waited until after I’d moved the shit to till.

The heat intensifies. There are no clouds. Birdsong fills the air. Horse flies and deer flies have not yet hatched and it’s too warm for mosquitoes to pester me as I stagger through the swelter. Load by load, my ruined knees bearing the weight, I push through the loamy earth, stop and toss shovel after shovel of rotting excrement onto exhausted soil. I’ve been at this for 33 summers; first at the garden we inherited from the former owners of this land, the Drews, and for the past 17 years, here, working new ground I tilled up with the Troy Bilt on the site of our new home. A pair of sandhills cranks away, too high and too distant to for me to see. A bald eagle drifts above the river, scanning for fish. A pair of mallards bursts from forest, leaving a small seasonal pond behind, a tiny bowl of water that once hosted our young sons and their friends on ice skates. Boys. There are none left around here to help move poop. The three oldest are living lives with partners other than their parents. Jack is away at Camp Ripley, participating in Army drill weekend. Truth be told, none of the boys ever really helped all that much in the vegetable garden. Fertilizing, planting, weeding, and harvesting, with rare exception, have always been the province of Rene’ and me. I break for lunch, my arms tired, my knee braces; the one on the left protecting a bone on bone joint that needs replacing; the one on the right bracing a torn meniscus that needs surgery; and fill a water bottle with ice and tap water. Kena sits on the front porch, ball in mouth. Waiting.

Rene’ is otherwise occupied, cleaning out the rock garden that defines our front yard. She’s hard at it, laying down a new pond liner in one of the fountain pools and patching the other pond basin with concrete. Back at the poop pile, the Labrador insists on another toss. I chuck the ball from the top of the brambled riverbank, the pitch so steep, a man can’t climb it without grasping the shoots of aspen, pine, birch, and balsam that hold the slope together. Kena pounces through thicket and plows into the cold, black water. Once. Twice. Three times I toss the ball and still, she appears at my feet, eyes expectant, ball waiting on the ground between her paws, eager for another go.

By dinnertime, the pile of shit is nearly gone. The garden has been revitalized. Rene’ calls The Eagle’s Nest and orders burgers. I shower and, with the Pacifica’s battery reconnected, drive to Fish Lake to pick up our food. While the cook finishes up, I sit at the bar sipping ice cold tap beer and wonder how many years my body will let me garden.

Peace.

Mark

One Man, One River

 When great men or women die, the passage of time acts like rust working on iron: as years roll by, the societal remembrance of the departed slowly dissipates until there is only a vague recollection, a caricature of sorts, of the deceased left for consideration. Many of you have no idea who Willard Munger was or how his story is interwoven with that of the modern St. Louis River. Hopefully, this short essay will recall his fight to clean up and preserve the estuary that is the birthing place of the Great Lakes, the world’s largest repository of fresh water.

Willard was born on a farm in Otter Tail County, Minnesota on January 20, 1911, the son of an impoverished farmer and a homemaker of limited education. After a bout of illness, Munger graduated from Fergus Falls High School in 1932 and began working a series of jobs that eventually took him from northwestern Minnesota to Duluth. Other than a few marine drafting courses taken at UMD to secure a job in the shipyards of Duluth and Superior during WW II, Munger’s formal education ended with high school. However, despite this limited exposure to schooling, Willard Munger was steeped in the conservation ethic of his paternal grandfather, a man who, though a poor farmer, was a firm believer in the power of the political process to preserve the land and water for future generations. Lyman Munger exposed his grandson to the forests, marshes, rivers, and beauty of the natural world to be found in rural Otter Tail County, imprinting upon his young grandson a land ethic akin to that later immortalized by Wisconsin’s Aldo Leopold. Willard carried a vague and half-formed appreciation for the natural world with him when he arrived in the Twin Ports in 1935. Settling in Duluth, Munger’s imprecise and somewhat naive understanding of the environment and man’s ability to adversely “soil his own nest” collided with the reality of the tragedy occurring along the banks of the St. Louis River.

Willard Munger settled in northeastern Minnesota at the height of the Great Depression. His first reaction to the sewer laden, foul smelling, toxic waters of the great waterway dividing the industrial cities of Duluth and Superior was disgust. But, with a child on the way and a young wife at home, Munger reconciled the river’s ugliness with society’s need for economic progress and his own need to find work. It wasn’t until Reserve Mining proposed (in 1948) to obtain a permit from the State of Minnesota to dump waste from its taconite processing operation into the pristine waters of Lake Superior and Willard joined the United Northern Sportsmen of Duluth, that Willard came to realize the wrong headedness of what was happening to the St. Louis River and Lake Superior. It was then that the young liberal politician, steeped in the socialism of the Nonpartisan League and Farmer Labor Party of his grandfather and his parents, decided “enough is enough” and began to work against those in power who saw the St. Louis River as an open sewer and Lake Superior as an inexhaustible holding pond for industrial and municipal waste. Though the United Northern Sportsmen’s efforts to stop Reserve Mining’s plan to dump taconite tailings into the lake failed, that effort gave Munger confidence to run for public office. He’d run unsuccessfully, on an economic platform of reform rooted in his ancestor’s socialism, for the State Legislature in Otter Tail County as a twenty-one year old Farmer Laborite in 1934. He lost. He ran again for a position in the Minnesota House of Representatives in 1952 under the banner of the newly minted Democratic Farmer Labor Party, placing his passionate love for the St. Louis River estuary, and the need to regulate the waste being dumped into that delicate ecosystem, front and center in his campaign message. He lost again.

Rethinking his strategy, Munger came to realize that he was, in many ways, ahead of his time and his would-be constituents in the blue-collar neighborhoods of West Duluth that he proposed to represent. The environment, the cleaning up of the St. Louis River, was not high on the list of priorities for local voters. Jobs. Taxes. Preservation of social security and pensions. These were issues that galvanized Munger’s fellow West Duluthians, issues that Munger adopted as his own when he won a House seat in 1954. But the fact that Willard publically pivoted away from his dream of cleaning up the St. Louis River did not equate to an abandonment of principle. In 1955, as he took his seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives (a seat he held until his death in 1999) the very first piece of legislation Willard Munger sponsored was a bill seeking $25,000 to study the idea of treating industrial and municipal sewage through regional waste treatment districts. His request was promptly rejected by the conservative forces in control of the House. Undaunted, Munger brought the bill back during the next legislative session. Money was allocated in 1957 to study whether or not all of Minnesota’s rivers, not just Munger’s beloved St. Louis, were in need of rejuvenation. It took Willard Munger the next fifteen years to convince his brother and sister legislators that Minnesota’s shameful abuse of its rivers and streams needed corrective action.

Willard Munger’s foresight led to the creation of the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District, the WLSSD, a regional waste treatment facility that, along with a myriad of other conservation and environmental legislation Munger passed over a laudatory and lengthy political career, made Minnesota’s waterways cleaner. When Munger began his efforts to revitalize and reclaim the river, human feces floated in St. Louis Bay. The ancient fishery, one that boasted bountiful populations of walleye, pike, sturgeon, bass, and other game fish, was dead. The few walleye that managed to spawn in the turbid, toxic waters of the St. Louis were inedible. The sturgeon were gone, killed off by progress. The pike tended to stay out by the cooler, less polluted waters of the Big Lake. Today, on any given summer afternoon, one can look out across the flat, broad waters of the St. Louis River and see countless fishing boats bobbing at anchor or trolling the repatriated weed beds of a healthy ecosystem. Willard Munger’s persistence, his refusal to accept “no” for an answer, is a big reason why the folks in those boats are enjoying themselves.

As Willard’s staff assistant Ann Glumac once said, “I’ve known many famous, important men in my lifetime but I’ve only known one great man. That man was Willard Munger.” Indeed. Representative Munger’s life should not be forgotten but remembered by posterity as an example that even ordinary men can do extraordinary things.

Happy Earth Day 2016!

Mark

(This essay was originally written for the One River, Many Voices project regarding the history and importance of the St. Louis River. It was not chosen for airing on Wisconsin Public Radio but another of my essays, “Ducks”, was. Stay tuned!)

Ann Glumac and Rep. Munger